Programs - Visual Arts › Knitting

Knitting - Vanessa Ægirsdóttir

Each student will have lots of wool left to knit at the end of class, the needles and wool will be theirs to keep. If the teacher wishes, this class can be extended to facilitate completion of a small project.

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir is a textile artist with over twenty years experience working with fabrics, yarns, and other fibre based media. Her earliest childhood memories are firmly anchored in playing dress-up, hand made dollies and crafting. Her mother was a west-coast Canadian hippie with a love for fabrics, embroidery, quilting, and handcrafts which instilled in Vanessa a love for making things with her hands from even the simplest, often repurposed materials.
She has attended two residencies in North Iceland and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canada and Iceland. During her time in Iceland, she has spent considerable time exploring “slow textiles” using very manual, traditional methods of making fabric. She hand spins her yarns on a spinning wheel and uses a hand-built frame loom to produce her tapestries.
In her work, her love of her two homes , Canada and Iceland, is evident. Her Iceland Series highlights the limited palette and textural uniqueness of the rugged landscape . In these pieces she uses exclusively Icelandic materials - wool, fish leather, lava rock, and swan feathers. The Canadian works reflect the range of colours found in the scenery that make Canadian landscapes so unforgettable. As with the Icelandic weavings, Vanessa uses exclusive Canadian materials in her Canada Series; materials such as wool, sea glass, quartz, and shale.
In her practice, she puts particular focus on mastering the proper processing techniques and use of the dual coated wool of the Icelandic sheep (which is a particular challenge) and producing yarns, fabrics, and tapestries from this unique fibre. Additionally, she takes great care and pride in each step of processing fleeces, regardless of origin, to allow each breed on wool to be celebrated and enjoyed for its individual beauty.

Contact: 867-335-6451